On the radio program This American Life, I have just heard of a young man who got a job at a newspaper, even though he had no training or experience
for it. He was given the business desk, and didn't do anything for the first three weeks. At that point, he was told to write a story about a
certain company. In the story, he said that the company "had made and lost $1,000,000 in one year." This story caused the company's stock to drop
10 points. However, the company had NOT lost $1,000,000--that was an error in the story.

However, this awakened some interest in the writer. He had done two things:
1--He'd gotten a story into the paper. Even though it was in error, no one stopped him.
2--He'd made the stock go down 10 points. (What he wrote had POWER!)

That year, a committee was to decide where to have the international AIDS conference. They were choosing between 3 cities. The writer thought he
would enjoy covering the converence in person (a chance to travel at the newspaper's expense). However, he had already been to the three cities that
were in the running. So, when he wrote it up, he added a fourth city, Sydney, Australia. This got the attention of a wire service, which contacted
representatives from Sydney to ask about it. The people from Sydney replied that they would very much like to host the AIDS conference. So, it
became part of news worldwide: "Sydney seeks consideration to host the international AIDS conference."